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Calling a WCF Service from a Client Without Having the Contract Interface

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11 Feb 2012CPOL2 min read 78.5K   27   22
Calling a WCF service from a client without having the contract interface

I was asked yesterday in the Hebrew C#/.NET Framework MSDN forums a tough question – is it possible to dynamically call a WCF service using only the contract name, operation name, and metadata address?

At first, I agreed with the answer given in the forum – move from SOAP bindings to WebHttpBinding (“REST”). This of course makes things a lot easier, only requiring you to create a WebHttpRequest and parse the response. However the question remains - is it possible to do this in the case of a SOAP-based service endpoint?

The short answer is – YES!

The full answer is – YES, but you’ll need to do a lot of coding to make it work properly, and even more coding for complex scenarios (who said passing a data contract?)

How is it done, you ask?

First let’s start with the contract – you have a simple contract that looks like so:

C#
 1:  [ServiceContract]
 2:  public interface ICalculator
 3:  {
 4:    [OperationContract]
 5:    double Add(double n1, double n2);
 6:    [OperationContract]
 7:    double Subtract(double n1, double n2);
 8:    [OperationContract]
 9:    double Multiply(double n1, double n2);
10:    [OperationContract]
11:    double Divide(double n1, double n2);
12:  }

At this point, the implementation doesn’t matter, but you can assume the service compiles and loads successfully.

Second, make sure your service has either a MEX endpoint or metadata exposed over HTTP GET. Read this for more information about the difference between the two.

Third – do the client coding!!! To create the client code, I took some ideas from the following links:

C#
  1:  using System;
  2:  using System.Collections.Generic;
  3:  using System.Linq;
  4:  using System.ServiceModel;
  5:  using System.ServiceModel.Description;
  6:  using System.Globalization;
  7:  using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
  8:  using System.CodeDom.Compiler;
  9:
 10:  namespace Client
 11:  {
 12:      class Program
 13:      {
 14:          static void Main(string[] args)
 15:          {
 16:              // Define the metadata address, contract name, operation name,
                  // and parameters.
 17:              // You can choose between MEX endpoint and HTTP GET by
                  // changing the address and enum value.
 18:              Uri mexAddress =
           new Uri("http://localhost:8732/CalculatorService/?wsdl");
 19:              // For MEX endpoints use a MEX address and a
                  // mexMode of .MetadataExchange
 20:              MetadataExchangeClientMode mexMode = MetadataExchangeClientMode.HttpGet;
 21:              string contractName = "ICalculator";
 22:              string operationName = "Add";
 23:              object[] operationParameters = new object[] { 1, 2 };
 24:
 25:              // Get the metadata file from the service.
 26:              MetadataExchangeClient mexClient =
           new MetadataExchangeClient(mexAddress, mexMode);
 27:              mexClient.ResolveMetadataReferences = true;
 28:              MetadataSet metaSet = mexClient.GetMetadata();
 29:
 30:              // Import all contracts and endpoints
 31:              WsdlImporter importer = new WsdlImporter(metaSet);
 32:              Collection<ContractDescription> contracts =
                   importer.ImportAllContracts();
 33:              ServiceEndpointCollection allEndpoints = importer.ImportAllEndpoints();
 34:
 35:              // Generate type information for each contract
 36:              ServiceContractGenerator generator = new ServiceContractGenerator();
 37:              var endpointsForContracts =
           new Dictionary<string, IEnumerable<ServiceEndpoint>>();
 38:
 39:              foreach (ContractDescription contract in contracts)
 40:              {
 41:                  generator.GenerateServiceContractType(contract);
 42:                  // Keep a list of each contract's endpoints
 43:                  endpointsForContracts[contract.Name] = allEndpoints.Where(
 44:                      se => se.Contract.Name == contract.Name).ToList();
 45:              }
 46:
 47:              if (generator.Errors.Count != 0)
 48:                  throw new Exception("There were errors during code compilation.");
 49:
 50:              // Generate a code file for the contracts
 51:              CodeGeneratorOptions options = new CodeGeneratorOptions();
 52:              options.BracingStyle = "C";
 53:              CodeDomProvider codeDomProvider = CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider("C#");
 54:
 55:              // Compile the code file to an in-memory assembly
 56:              // Don't forget to add all WCF-related assemblies as references
 57:              CompilerParameters compilerParameters = new CompilerParameters(
 58:                  new string[] {
 59:                      "System.dll", "System.ServiceModel.dll",
 60:                      "System.Runtime.Serialization.dll" });
 61:              compilerParameters.GenerateInMemory = true;
 62:
 63:              CompilerResults results = codeDomProvider.CompileAssemblyFromDom(
 64:                  compilerParameters, generator.TargetCompileUnit);
 65:
 66:              if (results.Errors.Count > 0)
 67:              {
 68:                  throw new Exception("There were errors during
                   generated code compilation");
 69:              }
 70:              else
 71:              {
 72:                  // Find the proxy type that was generated for the specified contract
 73:                  // (identified by a class that implements
                      // the contract and ICommunicationbject)
 74:                  Type clientProxyType = results.CompiledAssembly.GetTypes().First(
 75:                      t => t.IsClass &&
 76:                          t.GetInterface(contractName) != null &&
 77:                          t.GetInterface(typeof(ICommunicationObject).Name) != null);
 78:
 79:                  // Get the first service endpoint for the contract
 80:                  ServiceEndpoint se = endpointsForContracts[contractName].First();
 81:
 82:                  // Create an instance of the proxy
 83:                  // Pass the endpoint's binding and address as parameters
 84:                  // to the ctor
 85:                  object instance = results.CompiledAssembly.CreateInstance(
 86:                      clientProxyType.Name,
 87:                      false,
 88:                      System.Reflection.BindingFlags.CreateInstance,
 89:                      null,
 90:                      new object[] { se.Binding, se.Address },
 91:                      CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, null);
 92:
 93:                  // Get the operation's method, invoke it, and get the return value
 94:                  object retVal = instance.GetType().GetMethod(operationName).
 95:                      Invoke(instance, operationParameters);
 96:
 97:                  Console.WriteLine(retVal.ToString());
 98:              }
 99:          }
100:      }
101:  }

I’ve placed comments that describe the code, but basically it imports the WSDL, generates types for the contract (service + data), generates C# code from it, compiles it, and uses reflection to create a proxy and invoke the correct method.

If you want to use this technique to call methods that require a data contract, you will need some extra work to create the correct type and initialize it.

A compiled and running version of this code (+ the service) can be found here.

Hope you find this piece of code useful.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Architect Sela Group
Israel Israel
Web developer since 1997. I'm a senior architect at Sela Group in Israel. I'm a consultant, trainer (Microsoft MCT), and a speaker in conferences worldwide.
My main fields are WCF, ASP.NET, Windows Azure, IIS, Entity Framework, and Silverlight.

Comments and Discussions

 
Questionthank you Pin
Member 775659124-Oct-16 23:59
Member 775659124-Oct-16 23:59 
QuestionSame code is work in linux or not ? Pin
Member 113402429-Sep-15 7:59
Member 113402429-Sep-15 7:59 
Questionworks only for simple generic types Pin
stadelma30-Jun-15 22:00
stadelma30-Jun-15 22:00 
AnswerRe: works only for simple generic types Pin
Adriano Velasco12-Jan-16 5:20
Adriano Velasco12-Jan-16 5:20 
QuestionOperationContext Pin
Patrick Chang25-May-14 6:58
Patrick Chang25-May-14 6:58 
QuestionHow to pass a DTO instead of simple parameters Pin
Ruwan Jayalath14-May-13 18:11
Ruwan Jayalath14-May-13 18:11 
Hi Ido,
How to pass a DTO instead of simple parameters.
I tried it , but it gave me a Unable to convert from X to Y , such a parsing error.

Thanks,
Ruwan
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Ruwan Jayalath14-May-13 1:07
Ruwan Jayalath14-May-13 1:07 
QuestionWCF Web Service with Jax-WS(Java Client) using Visual Studiio 2008 SP1 Pin
MrKyaw1-Apr-13 23:43
MrKyaw1-Apr-13 23:43 
QuestionGetting Null reference on lines 93-95 Pin
setzamora20-Jan-13 23:34
setzamora20-Jan-13 23:34 
AnswerRe: Getting Null reference on lines 93-95 Pin
setzamora4-Feb-13 12:41
setzamora4-Feb-13 12:41 
QuestionHow can i pass complex data type (i.e. DataContract and DataMember) Pin
ramuknavap26-Nov-12 15:40
ramuknavap26-Nov-12 15:40 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
RogerFraser25-Oct-12 21:56
RogerFraser25-Oct-12 21:56 
QuestionCallbacks Pin
mr0mega12-Oct-12 4:50
mr0mega12-Oct-12 4:50 
GeneralMy vote of 4 Pin
mgh136615-Aug-12 22:38
mgh136615-Aug-12 22:38 
QuestionGood explanation Pin
oceanIndian25-Jul-12 7:24
oceanIndian25-Jul-12 7:24 
AnswerRe: Good explanation Pin
Ido Flatow25-Jul-12 8:10
Ido Flatow25-Jul-12 8:10 
QuestionHow to Invoke a rest service and get all its method dynamically Pin
shirasshiru25-Jun-12 2:26
shirasshiru25-Jun-12 2:26 
QuestionThe maximum message has been exceeded Pin
Dennis Dam16-Apr-12 5:10
Dennis Dam16-Apr-12 5:10 
AnswerRe: The maximum message has been exceeded Pin
Ido Flatow17-Apr-12 8:00
Ido Flatow17-Apr-12 8:00 
GeneralRe: The maximum message has been exceeded Pin
Dennis Dam17-Apr-12 21:08
Dennis Dam17-Apr-12 21:08 
Questionthis looks a little bit like this http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vipulmodi/archive/2006/11/16/dynamic-programming-with-wcf.aspx Pin
Gil.Schmidt11-Feb-12 23:00
Gil.Schmidt11-Feb-12 23:00 
AnswerRe: this looks a little bit like this http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vipulmodi/archive/2006/11/16/dynamic-programming-with-wcf.aspx Pin
Ido Flatow13-Feb-12 3:46
Ido Flatow13-Feb-12 3:46 

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